{"id":54390,"date":"2026-04-28T09:14:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/?post_type=news&p=54390"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:15:40","slug":"inspired-by-friendship-bracelets-built-for-surgery","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/news\/inspired-by-friendship-bracelets-built-for-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspired by Friendship Bracelets, Built for Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, a group of engineering students gathered around a hot pink and purple friendship bracelet maker\u00a0decorated\u00a0with stars.\u00a0They\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0doing arts and\u00a0crafts but\u00a0rather\u00a0taking inspiration from the bracelet maker to\u00a0try to solve a painful and often overlooked problem facing some cancer patients.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The group, helmed by undergraduate materials science students Sydney Kanuga and\u00a0Mareham\u00a0Yacoub, set out to develop a biodegradable pancreatic and bile duct stent for patients healing from one of the most complex types of surgery for cancer:\u00a0the\u00a0Whipple procedure.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The procedure\u00a0removes part of the pancreas, the first section of the small intestine, the gallbladder, and the bile duct, usually because the patient has pancreatic cancer or an intestinal tumor or something\u00a0similar.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYour gastrointestinal tract is\u00a0basically one\u00a0long\u00a0tube that passes through multiple organs. So, if you have cancer in any of those organs, a surgeon will want to cut out the cancerous part and then literally stitch\u00a0together the\u00a0remaining\u00a0portions\u00a0of your GI tract,\u201d Kanuga explained.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To connect the GI tract,\u00a0surgeons may place\u00a0a stent, often\u00a0a small silicone tube, along parts of the tract,\u00a0acting\u00a0as a kind of scaffolding to enable\u00a0the GI tissue to regrow and heal.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once\u00a0the tissue regrows and\u00a0heals,\u00a0the stent passes through\u00a0and out of the GI system.\u00a0\u201cA\u00a0lot of the time, the stent\u00a0gets lodged and causes\u00a0pain,\u00a0inflammation\u00a0and infection, and they have to do another surgery to\u00a0remove it,\u201d said Yacoub.\u00a0The question the group asked was:\u00a0\u2018What if that tube could be biodegradable and just melt away on its own once you’ve healed?\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How They Made It<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kanuga and Yacoub started with\u00a0FDA-approved biodegradable\u00a0sutures,\u00a0because\u00a0they already had an\u00a0idea of how fast they would degrade.\u00a0Looking for ways to braid the sutures into a tube, Kanuga turned\u00a0to\u00a0one of her favorite television shows.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s an episode on\u00a0<\/span>How It\u2019s Made<\/i><\/span>\u00a0of\u00a0how\u00a0to\u00a0make\u00a0climbing\u00a0rope,\u201d\u00a0she said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Climbing rope,\u00a0made with a\u00a0sophisticated\u00a0weaving machine,\u00a0has a solid core that gives the rope strength\u00a0surrounded by\u00a0decorative neon fibers\u00a0to make\u00a0the rope\u00a0visible\u00a0in the wilderness.\u00a0Kanuga\u2019s idea was to\u00a0wind\u00a0sutures around a central\u00a0form and\u00a0then dip the\u00a0sutures\u00a0in a biodegradable polymer to hold them in place. Then, they could\u00a0remove the central form,\u00a0leaving the sutures\u00a0shaped\u00a0like a\u00a0tube.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To weave the sutures together the students looked\u00a0to\u00a0an unlikely place: friendship bracelets.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up on Amazon, and I found a $30 friendship bracelet maker that had a mechanism actually very similar to the one I saw on\u00a0<\/span>How It’s Made<\/span><\/i>, but just much\u00a0smaller,\u201d said Kanuga.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The hot pink and purple gadget\u00a0was\u00a0called\u00a0\u201cThe Cool\u00a0Maker.\u201d\u00a0It\u00a0uses\u00a0an ancient Japanese braiding technique called\u00a0Kumihimo.\u00a0This form of braiding could help the team\u00a0easily tune the density of the braid to control its sturdiness.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

The Cool Maker. Photo by Will Kirk.<\/p><\/div>\n

One of\u00a0the\u00a0design team members\u00a0created\u00a0a way to do\u00a0Kumihimo\u00a0braiding\u00a0without the\u00a0Cool Maker,\u00a0using just a cardboard disc.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once they had a sturdy braid of sutures,\u00a0they coated\u00a0them\u00a0in\u00a0polycaprolactone, an FDA-approved\u00a0biodegradable polyester\u00a0commonly used in medical devices.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll of that stands up to\u00a0sterilization,\u00a0and long-term\u00a0degradation was going to be something that we could estimate and then\u00a0iterate upon,\u201d said Yacoub.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not just\u00a0<\/span><\/b>if<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u00a0it degrades – but\u00a0<\/span><\/b>when<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the\u00a0most difficult\u00a0problems\u00a0of\u00a0designing\u00a0any biodegradable implant\u00a0is\u00a0ensuring\u00a0it stays intact during healing\u00a0and then breaks down very soon afterwards.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI personally did not realize how much work it was going to be and how many issues were going to come up during\u00a0the\u00a0degradation study,\u201d said Yacoub.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They tested their braided tube in five different solutions meant to simulate\u00a0conditions when\u00a0a person\u00a0rests,\u00a0eats\u00a0and\u00a0digests food,\u00a0including varying levels of\u00a0stomach\u00a0acidity. They faced unexpected challenges.\u00a0The solutions degraded too slowly or formed a strange gel.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But Kanuga and Yacoub said that those were some of their most important\u00a0findings and\u00a0will put them\u00a0that much closer to\u00a0a viable\u00a0stent going forward.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by WIll Kirk.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI think one of our conclusions for\u00a0Design\u00a0Day is going to be that we overshot\u00a0and\u00a0added\u00a0way too much\u00a0polycaprolactone\u00a0to hold\u00a0it\u00a0together,\u00a0which may\u00a0take\u00a0too long\u00a0to degrade. So\u00a0that’s\u00a0one of the iterations that\u00a0we’re\u00a0going to\u00a0suggest\u00a0for next year is\u00a0definitely pulling\u00a0back\u00a0on that,\u201d said Kanuga.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yacoub and Kanuga are seniors gearing up to graduate. Kanuga is headed to a job\u00a0at the pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation Johnson & Johnson. Yacoub is pursuing an MD\/PhD program in\u00a0bioengineering at the University of Florida. But they said they hope to pass this project along\u00a0to\u00a0next year\u2019s seniors to continue finetuning the stent. For\u00a0Yacoub, this project\u00a0taught her how much can be\u00a0accomplished\u00a0with an engaged team.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u00a0could not have done it without our team. They were\u00a0superstars.\u00a0They\u00a0did\u00a0everything from unboxing the sutures all the way to making a computational model to simulate the degradation testing.\u00a0They were also able to figure it out together, and I think a big part of that\u00a0was\u00a0being able to trust them to do what they\u00a0needed\u00a0to do.\u00a0Their\u00a0individual talents really helped the entire team come together.\u00a0We made a fun little family.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The group consists of Kanuga, Yacoub, Matthew\u00a0Stryszak, Alicia Bai, Brianna Wu, Shrijani\u00a0Buruganahalli, Advik Chandok, Addison Clift, Olaoluwa\u00a0Odumade, and Leah Takamatsu. The ten students range from\u00a0freshmen\u00a0to seniors majoring in materials science, chemical and biomolecular engineering,\u00a0and\u00a0biophysics.\u00a0The groups’ advisors on the project are Chris Schubert, an Assistant Professor in Surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and materials science professor Tim Weihs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kanuga said this project also taught her that inspiration can come from anywhere\u00a0and that sometimes, the path to a life-changing medical device starts with something as small and unlikely as a friendship bracelet.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

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